


This is how it feels to take a fall

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Communication is an important part of all relationships, F/M, Introspection, Nightmares, Overzealous use of falling/flying imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 13:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7686589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vax wants to run, but the bottom has dropped out of his world and there is nowhere left to run to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is how it feels to take a fall

**Author's Note:**

> Set prior to episode 51; spoilers for the Vestiges Arc. Based on something Liam said on Periscope, about Vax's world falling out from beneath him.
> 
> Title from "Icarus" by Bastille.

Vax dreams of falling.

Nightmares are nothing new; he has seen enough for a lifetime of bad dreams. But falling––the lurch, the never-ending drop, the sensation of tumbling through utter nothingness, darkness so black he cannot see his hand in front of his face, the jolt as he is just about to hit the ground but never does, never reaches the end, never comes to rest, he is always just _falling falling falling––_

That is new, and he dreams it every night.

He has since the dragons attacked.

Tonight he starts awake seconds before impact, jolting upright just as he is about to smash upon the bottom of the void, and for a moment cannot remember where he is, cannot remember anything except the whistling of wind past his head, his hair whipping into his face, twisting wildly through emptiness.

(He has never known such nothingness, and that frightens him almost as much as the falling.)

Then everything snaps back into place, the almost-familiar shapes of Scanlan’s improbable mansion coming into focus, and Vax can breathe again.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears, louder than his breathing, louder than his thoughts. He sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, feet flat against the floor and the ground solid underfoot. He has soaked the bedsheets through with sweat, and the air across his back is icy. His hair sticks to the back of his neck, and he scrapes it up into a messy bun with shaking hands.

Damn it.

He leans over, pressing his eyes against his palms until he sees spots, elbows digging into his knees, and breathes. In, out. In, out. They are safe. They are in Scanlan’s mansion. His sister sleeps next door. Nothing can get to them in here. They are safe.

(He is not falling. The world is solid around him. He is on the ground.)

Slowly, slowly, his heartbeat calms and his hands steady. Vax picks his head up, staring blindly across the room. He could try to go back to sleep, but experience tells him that he will only dream of falling again.

So he pushes himself to his feet instead and shrugs a shirt on. The thin fabric sticks uncomfortably to the sheen of sweat on his back. A walk to clear his head, he tells himself. This is not running. (Where could he run to, anyways? Nowhere is safe anymore, and there are people who need him, people he will not abandon.)

(Still. It is a hard habit to break.)

His feet carry him downstairs, through the improbable halls of Scanlan’s magic mansion. He tries not to think too hard about how it works; he tries to focus on the feel of the floor underfoot, the smooth wood and the thick carpets. He runs his fingers along the wall, reminds himself that this is real, that he is real, that he is on the ground, that the bottom may have dropped out of the world but he is still _here_.

Eventually, his feet carry him into the parlor at the end of the hall. Tapestries cover the walls, and embers still glow in the fireplace on the far side of the room. Vax, suddenly aware of how cold he is, pads across the room to warm up. He crouches in front of the fireplace, hands outstretched. The ashes still give off a little heat.

“Vax?”

He spins around in a smooth motion, hands reaching for daggers he isn’t wearing, and the world seems to tilt wildly underneath him (he is falling again, he cannot catch himself, there is nothing to hold on to) before he recognizes the voice, the red hair, the bleary druid on the plush couch in front of the fire. Percy’s coat is draped over her, and she tugs it around her shoulders as she sits upright, pushing her hair out of her face. Vax’s heartbeat thunders in his ears as he presses one hand across his eyes and forces his breathing back under control. His other hand he splays across the floor.

(It is steady beneath him. His heartbeat slows.)

“Are you alright?” Keyleth asks, and Vax pulls his hand away from his eyes. What an idiot he must look like, crouched in front of the fireplace like this. Keyleth leans forwards a little, concern painted across her face.

“I’m fine,” he says, because he is always fine. 

Keyleth does not believe him. (He forgets, sometimes, exactly how perceptive she is.)

“Would you like to sit?” she offers, and Vax stands to slowly approach the couch. He sinks into the overstuffed cushions. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He doesn’t know what to do at all, actually. The spaces between them have shifted, and nothing seems to fit anymore.

(He should have kept his fucking mouth shut.)

“Hi,” Keyleth says finally. She tugs the coat tighter around her. Percival may be a narrow man, but his coat dwarfs her. She notices him staring. “Um. We were planning.”

“Yeah.”

“For Westruun.”

“Right.”

They fade back into silence, and Vax stares at the embers. 

(When did talking become so hard?)

“Vax?”

“Hmm?”

Keyleth is staring at him. She sits sideways on the couch, tailor style. She twists her lip in though and then, with a flick of her fingers, she sets the embers ablaze. Golden firelight spills out of the hearth, catching on her hair, painting her in tones of bronze and copper.

Gods, she is beautiful.

(He feels an almost-familiar lurch beneath his ribcage, and almost-familiar jolt, but it is not falling, not quite, and he cannot place it. His mouth is dry.)

She stares at him with a familiar expression, mouth a little crooked and brows a little furrowed. An expression that says she has something to say, and isn’t sure if she should say it. Vax waits, uncertain. Part of him hopes she speaks. Part of him hopes she doesn’t.

But this is Keyleth. He should know better by now than to doubt her determination.

“Can we talk?” Her hands pick at the buttons of Percy’s coat. “We haven’t really, since––” Since he left her alone in her room at Whitestone. “Y’know. And I just. Think maybe we should?”

Vax doesn’t want to talk. Vax wants to run, and run, and run, but the bottom has dropped out of his world and there is nowhere left to run to.

(He is tired of running. Their escape from Emon, their flight to Vasselheim, this wild chase that stretches before them, it is too much like falling––the chaos of constant motion, of not knowing what comes next, bracing for impact and never sure when it will arrive.)

He stays.

Keyleth gives him a moment, and when he doesn’t walk out she nods slowly and gives him a faint smile. There is too much relief in her eyes, though, and guilt washes over him unbidden.

“I’m sorry,” Vax blurts out before she can speak. It hangs in the air between them, heavy and awkward. Vax swallows around the edges it leaves behind. “For leaving,” he tells her, quieter. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she says, just as quiet. She studies her hands. Vax studies her face. She looks tired, so tired.

(Vax is not the only one plagued by bad dreams.)

“Why me?” she asks him, meeting his eyes, and for a moment he doesn’t understand.

“What?”

“You said–– You said you love me.” She stumbles over the words, but her gaze is steady, seems to almost pin him in place. “Just… why me, Vax?”

She sits facing him, the firelight throwing deep shadows across the room, and Vax can’t seem to look away from her. She leans forward a little, the sleeves of Percy’s coat falling into her lap and her hair tumbling over one ear. He wants to tuck it back into place. He wants to run his fingers along the line of her jaw, and tell her that she is the sunlight, and kiss her softly. He wants to stand by her side against all the evils of the world.

Instead, because he’s an idiot, he just sort of. Stares.

(The world tilts under him and he is tumbling, tumbling; when will he be able to catch himself?)

“Uh,” he says, ever-eloquent. “I mean. You’re you.”

He says it like it’s obvious, because it is, but she frowns and leans back, looking away towards the fire. Vax kicks himself and, before he can talk himself out of it, reaches for her hand. Her head snaps back around towards him at the contact. Vax swallows.

“You are bright,” he tells her, picking his words carefully as he laces their fingers together. He has to be right. Be precise. She has to understand.

(It is hard to be specific when you are falling.)

“You care,” he tells her. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m not sure what the point of all this is. But you remind me. That we can do good. That we should try. That we shouldn’t back down.” She stares at him as he speaks, and he pushes ahead, stilted but determined. “I love your stubbornness, and your heart. I love your power, and your awkwardness.” She makes a face at that, and it brings a genuine smile to his own. “I love you, Keyleth.”

Her warm fingers squeeze his cold ones. (She is like a lifeline; he holds on for dear life.) “So it’s not… just because I’m here?”

“What?” His stomach drops. “Kiki, no, I don’t–– Who said that?”

“No one,” she assures him hastily. “I just thought, maybe… I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “It’s dumb. Forget it.”

Vax’s heart flutters, and he shifts closer to her on the couch.

“I love you for you,” he tells her, soft and intent. She has to understand. “I know you’re afraid, and I won’t push, I’ll give to space. I’ll walk away right now if you want me to. But I meant everything I said, and I still––” He still loves her. How could he not?

She stares at him for a long, long time, eyes intense and lips pressed tight. She seems to stare right through him, and Vax has to look away, gazing instead at the fire. He can feel the warmth of a blush across his face, all the way up to the tips of his ears.

Then Keyleth moves next to him, scooting over to sit curled against his side. Vax freezes as her knee bumps against his, and a moment later she settles her head on his shoulder. They stare at the flickering fire, and Vax is aware of every strand of her hair tickling his neck, of the way their hands fit together, of the weight of her against his side.

(The flutter beneath his ribcage is almost familiar, is almost-falling, but it is wrong, it is different, it is––)

“I’m scared,” Keyleth says softly. “I don’t think I’m going to stop being scared. I don’t want to lose you. Any of you. I don’t want to be alone.” She takes a deep breath. “But,” she says, and Vax feels himself go still as she forges ahead, ever determined. “But, I don’t want being scared to change how I feel. I meant it, too. What I said.”

( _And, I think I love you._ )

She sighs against his side, her hand tightening around his own. (You are not the only one holding on, Vax’ildan; you are not the only one afraid to fall.) “I don’t know what it means, or, or how that works, or what changes, but I meant it. You’re brave, and you care, and you make me laugh. And, sometimes you do really dumb shit,” she adds, an afterthought, and Vax makes a face, though she can’t see it. “But I kind of like that about you too. So. I don’t know what this is. But maybe we can figure it out? Together?”

“Yeah,” Vax agrees, and something glows in his chest, bright and blinding and floating and free. He nods, his cheek brushing the top of her head. “Yeah, we can do that.”

“Okay,” Keyleth says, like it’s that easy. And, well, maybe it is.

(And oh, now he recognizes the feeling fluttering beneath his ribcage, this almost-pull, this almost-jolt.)

(This is not falling.)

(This is _flying_.)

Eventually, Vax’s eyelids grow heavy again, and he dozes off, Keyleth warm and safe and tucked under one arm. For the first time in a long time, he sleeps without nightmares.

(He dreams of flight, of freedom and light, of coming home to roost.)

He wakes alone, a blanket pulled over him and the fire long-cold, the sounds of breakfast echoing down the hall. He wakes rested and calm. He wakes to the lingering scent of flowers.

 _The world will look brighter in the morning_ , Mother used to say. This morning, for the first time in a long time, he believes that.

Heart a little lighter, he rises and joins his friends for breakfast.


End file.
